A Dalit woman leads
a group of fellow Dalits singing this popular folk song about poverty and
inequality in the opening moments of Article
15. It is a catchy tune with a light touch that belies its poignant
subject. The manner in which it is used here is also unusual in the context of
Bollywood.

First, in recent
years, the number of Hindi film duets and group songs fronted by a female voice
has fallen sharply in comparison with songs led by male singers. Second, this
particular woman – Gaura (played by Sayani Gupta) – is Dalit, a member of India’s
most oppressed community and one that has more or less disappeared from
mainstream Hindi cinema for about three decades now barring exceptions like
Neeraj Ghaywan’s lovely Masaan (2015), in contrast with India’s other language cinemas such as Tamil, Marathi
and Malayalam that show far greater awareness of caste.

That
producer-director-writer Anubhav Sinha has chosen to kick off Article 15 with Kahab Toh Lag Jayee Dhak Se featuring Gaura instead of a high-caste
male messiah of Dalits speaks volumes about his sincerity towards the
issues he explores in this gutsy, gut-wrenching expose of caste oppression.

The film draws its
title from Article 15 of the Indian Constitution that forbids discrimination
against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth.
It is set in a village called Lalgaon in Uttar Pradesh where the IPS officer
Ayan Ranjan (Ayushmann Khurrana) is posted. Despite his good intentions, he
finds himself initially at sea here because of his skeletal understanding of
the caste system.

An intelligently crafted
scene in Article 15 serves as an
education for Ayan whose liberal background combined with caste privilege at birth
has allowed him the luxury – a luxury life does not grant Dalits – of growing
up ignorant of caste. In that gently humorous passage, it becomes clear as Ayan
quizzes his colleagues about their individual jaati that he knows nothing about this country’s exploitative,
congenitally assigned social divisioning beyond what he has learnt in theory
from textbooks: that Hindu society is divided into four varnas – Brahmin,
Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra.

What causes Ayan to
attempt a study of caste is the rape and murder of two Dalit girls whose bodies
are found hanging from a tree soon after his arrival in Lalgaon.

As he proceeds with
the investigation against all odds and gets acquainted with Gaura, his own
colleague Jatav (Kumud Mishra) and the underground Dalit resistance leader
Nishad (Zeeshan Ayyub), he is schooled in the magnitude of India’s caste problem.

All this takes
place against the backdrop of the formation of a united Brahmin-Dalit political
front in UP.

Films about
marginalised communities are often made to stress the benevolence of
progressives from dominant social groups. A striking example is the blatant
white saviour complex of that appalling Hollywood film Green Book, winner of 2019’s Best Picture Oscar. Article 15 walks a tightrope to ensure
that even as it uses Khurrana’s stardom to draw attention to its concerns and
utilises Ayan’s quest for knowledge to enlighten the audience about caste, the
screenplay does not get condescending towards Dalits and does not write
him, a Brahmin, as a patron of the downtrodden who Brahminsplains caste to
those suffering most at its hands.

Besides, although
Dalits are victims of criminal discrimination and violence in this film, the
portrayal of the community is layered and not limited to teary scenes of
nameless persons wallowing in victimhood. The Dalits of Article 15 are also its leaders and warriors, and Ayan is an ally,
not a boss.

Nishad and Gaura risk
everything to battle injustice. Alongside them exist silent sufferers too as
does the very believable Jatav who plays along with existing practices for his
survival. And when the motivation for the rape and murder of young Shanu and
Mamta is revealed, we learn that they were not bechari abla naaris of Old Bollywood but brave fighters for Dalit
rights and martyrs to their cause.

That said, while Article 15’s two most prominent women –
Gaura and Ayan’s journalist-activist girlfriend Aditi (Isha Talwar) – are certainly
tough characters, they remain in the woman-behind-the-man mould while at every
level the reins remain in the hands of men. This may have passed muster in
another Bollywood offering, but must be mentioned here since Article 15 has raised the bar for itself
with its approach to caste representation.

A conventional
interpretation of this film may be that Ayan is its hero, but in fact the
writing and direction skillfully foreground Nishad and make him an equal
protagonist although he gets less face time than the former. This is achieved
through various means including the use of Nishad alone for a powerful,
occasional voiceover, the build-up of anticipation before his introductory
appearance, the casting of the always-brilliant Zeeshan Ayyub (Raanjhanaa, Shahid) in the role, and the treatment of the finale.

(Spoiler alert for this paragraph) At first, I was
conflicted about Khurrana hanging around in the frame looking grim while a
troupe of rappers belt out the anthem of protest, Shuru Karein Kya, in the end. As the number grew on me though, I
became aware that I was on edge, worrying that Sinha was about to ruin his
beautiful film near the finishing stretch by getting Khurrana to break into a
dance and perhaps even throw a glammed-up Ayyub and Gupta in sexy clothes into
the mix, because, well, that’s what happens in those thingies called ‘item’
songs. My tension ebbed away though as I realised that this video is instead an
inversion of that Bollywood cliché, and that Khurrana’s presence through the
song was, at least for me, a reminder of Ayyub and Gupta’s absence. That said,
I remain conflicted about the need for Shuru
Karein Kya at that point, coming as it did right after a deeply moving,
uplifting climax. (Spoiler alert ends)

Where Article 15 really kills it with music is
in its astounding use of Vande
Mataram. Twice. And both times I had to stifle sobs because the placement of
thesongin the narrative rips right through the agenda of hate being
peddled by extremists currently appropriating Vande Mataram.

Article 15 is a courageous work, not the least reason being
that it is filled with references to current affairs from the Badaun hangings to
the Una floggings and beyond. There was a time when “Mahantji” was a generic
title, here though the allusion cannot be lost on any individual who has not
been living under a rock in recent years. Before persecution complexes kick in,
let this be said: Anubhav Sinha spares no one in Article 15, not Hindutvavaadi politicians, not Dalit netas who use the
community to rise in politics and then treat them with disdain, not the media who were up in arms against the 2012 Delhi bus gangrape but are
rarely as stirred by atrocities onwomen of the
hinterland, not cowards who wear a mask of “neutrality” as a means of
self-preservation, not members of marginalised groups who become fierce
proponents of the marginalisers’ agenda once they themselves are in positions
of power, not even Gandhi.

Nishad’s statement,
“Hum kabhi Harijan ho jaate hai, kabhi
Bahujan ho jaate hai, bas jan nahin ban paa rahey hai ki Jan Gan Man mein
hamari bhi ginti ho jaaye” (sometimes we are called Harijan, sometimes we
are labelled Bahujan, but we have never managed to be just jan, people, so that we can be counted among India’s general
citizenry), could well be seen as the film’s way of noting that while the
Mahatma – who popularised the term Harijan (Children of God) – actively
campaigned against untouchability, his interpretation of caste was
flawed. However, the incorporation of a few bars from one of Gandhi’s
favourite hymns, Vaishnava Janato, in
Shuru Karein Kya tells us that even
if Article 15 is calling the great
man out on his failings, it is not outrightly brushing him aside and continues
to pay tribute to hisoverallvision.

(Minor spoilers in this paragraph) The casting of
southern Indian acting stalwart Nasser as a government official taunting Ayan
for his poor Hindi is a masterstroke – he is not a Hindi bhaashi himself and
struggles with the language but backs those who seek to aggressively impose it
on India as a whole and have turned it into yet another tool of divisiveness
since Independence. (Spoiler alert ends)

That Ayushmann
Khurrana throws himself into the stoicism and moral dilemmas of Ayan after the
impertinence and amorality of his Akash in 2018’s Andhadhun and is convincing in both is a testament to his
versatility. Sayani Gupta too has a knack of hitting the bull’s eye in vastly
varied roles – if she could so thoroughly immerse herself in the part of a
glamorous city-bred journalist in the glossy but superficial online series Four More Shots Please! and deliver as
immersive a performance in Article 15’s
realistic circumstances, she can do anything. And Ayyub remains his own stiffest
competition in successive roles as he gets more remarkable with each one.

The entire cast
seems to be playing a round of “Who Is The More Brilliant Actor?” Is it Kumud
Mishra who reaches into himself to find the very soul of Jatav? Or Manoj Pahwa
playing the incorrigible status-quoist Brahmdutt? Or Sumbul Touqeer who
embodies the guilelessness of a child caught in a web of cruelty woven by
adults?

The contest for the
best talent among them rivals the search for the best-written line. Sinha, whose
Mulk skewered Islamophobia, outdoes
himself here in the company of his co-writer Gaurav Solanki. I began taking
notes during the interval so that I would not forget Aditi’s “Hero nahin chahiye, bas aise log chahiye jo hero ka
wait na karein” (I/we don’t need a
hero, what is needed are people who do not wait around for a hero), or the
hilarious scenes in which Jatav misunderstands an English swear word, or “Daliton ke Robin Hood”, or Brahmdutt’s
earnest “Aap se nivedan hai Sir, santulan mat bigaadiye” (I beg you Sir,
don’t disrupt the balance), or “If everyone becomes equal then who will be
king?” or...and then I gave up because there were too many worth noting down.

Each eloquent
sentence spoken in Article 15 feels
like an arrow released from a taut bowstring by an ace archer, cutting through
bullshit and past the play-it-safe ramblings dominating the ongoing liberal
discourse to say it like it is and say what needs to be said.

Watching this film
is an overwhelming emotional experience. Article
15 is the best that Indian cinema can be in these troubled times if it
chooses to hold a mirror up to our society, compelling us to confront the worst
that we are and the best that we can be when we are not busy saving our own
skins.

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About Me

Anna MM Vetticad is an award-winning journalist, journalism teacher and author of the critically acclaimed bestseller The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic, an overview of the Hindi film industry presented through an account of a year in which she watched every single Bollywood film released in India’s National Capital Region. A journalist since 1994, she has worked with India Today, The Indian Express and Headlines Today. At HT she hosted her own interview show Star Trek which drew all India’s eminent entertainment personalities. While Anna has spent most of her career as a behind-the-scenes editorial person, she has also reported on most major Indian entertainment and lifestyle events and several international ones including Cannes and the Oscars, in addition to being the film critic for Headlines Today. She is currently reporting and writing for multiple publications on cinema and social issues with a focus on gender concerns. The Adventures of an Intrepid Film Critic is available on amazon.com, ebay.in, flipkart.com, ombooksinternational.com, ombooks.com, infibeam.com, homeshop18.com and dialabook.in among other websites, and in stores across India. Twitter: @annavetticad